Perkins,
H., and Thorns, D. (2001) 'Gazing or Performing?
Reflections on Urry's Tourist Gaze in the Context of Contemporary
Experience in the Antipodes', in International Sociology,
Vol 16, No 2: 185 - 204.

Urry's work has been highly influential, but it sometimes assumes that
its framework can be applied outside of Europe, and it can be
criticised. In particular, 'the gaze metaphor is too passive to
encapsulate the full range of the tourist experience... a better
metaphorical approach to tourism is to talk about the tourist
performance' (186). Performance has increased as a tourist activity as
tourism itself has changed, and performance has always been important
in societies like New Zealand. It is much more likely these days that
tourists will want to combine gazing with actually participating.

Urry did agree that the circumstances of the gaze could vary
'temporally and across social groups' (187). Most of his examples focus
on the development of tourism in Britain, however -- the rise of the
seaside holiday resort followed by the all-inclusive holiday camp and
then the package tour. Tourism became much more flexible in the 1960s
and was based far more around 'individualistic patterns of
activity' (188), although the package tour still persists. Urry's work
points to the ways in which these experiences were organised and
co-ordinated by the gaze, including the images provided in tourist
advertising before departure. As a result, 'authenticity' became more a
matter of conformity between these images and the actual sights. Selwyn
suggested that any attempt to make overall sense of the tourist
experience was abandoned in favour of a series of local spectacles. It
is true that tourist professionalism involved in place promotion has
become a major industry for city tourism. Urry's post-tourist reacts
against this organised gaze and attempts to avoid it [and sometimes
celebrates it ironically, surely?].

The debate about authenticity also included discussion of commodification, including Cohen's work on
staging tourist spectacles which stripped away local meaning, but also
created 'a "false touristic consciousness"' (190 quoting Cohen
1988). Tourism then became a matter of mass deception.

Turning to tourist activity helps criticise these perspectives. An
excessive focus on authenticity and searching for it avoids noticing
the substantial continuation of mass tourism, including package
holidays to Thailand and Australia. Such holidays invite the tourist to
immerse themselves in the classic activities of sun, surf, shopping,
sex, and bodily enjoyment, far away from the 'ascetic' tourism of
Urry's gazers. Tourists on holiday sing and dance in public. Even
working-class holiday makers in Britain wanted not only to see
landscapes but to walk or cycle through them. Encountering nature on
holiday classically involves activity too. Writers such as Game also
refer to the bodily sensations of touch, feel and smell [and see Stollar on this], and on resisting the
objectifying gaze. Tourists are capable of actively interpreting
advertising texts, and locals can resist attempts by tour companies to
manage them (some references on 192).

Tourism in New Zealand shows the importance of context, because
adventure and participation have always been major themes. Both
domestic and overseas tourists engage in 'physical, intellectual
and cognitive activity and gazing' (193). [A brief history of
tourism in New Zealand ensues, 193 - 5. Both domestic and overseas
tourism has increased since the 1980s, and overseas visitors are now
more likely to visit from 'Japan, Taiwan, Korea and Germany'
(195). There is a tourist circuit which continues to emphasise
'scenery, wild nature, thermal springs and the Maori' (195)].

Adventure tourism has grown, both in its 'hard' and 'soft'
forms (196). It is common to invite tourists 'both to gaze
at spectacular scenery and grapple with the challenge of nature' (196),
although there is an upper age limit for activities such as bungee
jumping. Domestic tourists also have a tradition of socially accessible
participation, both in terms of city tourism, and also adventure
activities and outdoor recreation, often combined with visiting friends
and relatives. Frequent stays in the country form 'an important
cultural tradition in New Zealand' (197), partly because of easy access
to uncrowded landscapes, although there are variations according
to 'age, income, education, gender and social class' (198). There
is a long tradition of building do- it- yourself holiday homes in rural
areas. There are now signs of purpose-built holiday accommodation
developing and also the 'growth of specially developed holiday
areas', an example of a trend towards gentrification.

Thus the gaze does not always cover the full range of tourist
experiences, especially in New Zealand, which indicates that local
context is an important variable. It could be possible that UK
inhabitants do spend more time gazing, but this might not apply in
other societies, where more opportunities for participation are
available.

[I still have a few doubts myself about whether such participation
really has escaped any disciplining gazes or apparatuses. Both
'gaze' and 'activity' seem to be taken rather literally here. It
seems to me that views of the landscape while descending from a
parachute might be just as conventional as those taken from a viewing
platform. Having said that, there is no doubt that the adrenalin rush
is likely to be quite different, of course -- but is that now also
capable of being organised by the tourist industry? On another tack, I
was expecting to find the notion of tourist performance pushed still
further, in the sense that gender can be a performance (see Butler) -- in other words to investigate the
extent to which tourists are 'playing/performing the tourist' in
response to attempts to structure their experience. Urry does get close
to this with the ironic tourist. Do active New Zealanders 'perform the
active New Zealander', bungee jumpers 'the bungee jumper' ?]